Counter-Strike is a team-based first-person shooter planned by Minh Le and Jess Cliffe in 1998. They started building it in January 1999 as a mod for Half-Life, and the first beta came out on 15 July 1999; more than 245,000 people played during the beta.
Valve acquired the intellectual property and announced a partnership with the team on 12 April 2000. The retail version, published by Sierra Studios, went gold in November 2000 and has been called the first fan-made video game released commercially. After that release the game had over 700,000 players on more than 7,000 servers. Version 1.6 was finalized on Steam on 12 September 2003, and an Xbox version followed in November 2003.
The first major tournament, the CPL Winter Championship in April 2001, drew 48 teams. In Japan the PC package was distributed by Cyberfront, and the Xbox version came out in 2004 with a CERO 18+ rating.12
Names and releases
| Region | Title on the box | Platform | Date | Publisher | Src |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA | Counter-StrikeRetail version; Valve announced it had gone gold on 9 November 2000. Steam lists the release date as 1 November 2000. | Windows | November 2000 | Sierra Studios | 1 |
| NA | Counter-StrikeDeveloped by Ritual Entertainment and Turtle Rock Studios; Europe 5 December 2003. | Xbox | Nov 18, 2003 | Microsoft Game Studios | 1 |
| WW | Counter-StrikeFirst beta of the free Half-Life mod. | Windows | Jul 15, 1999 | — | 1 |
| WW | Counter-Strike 1.6Final 1.6 release through Steam. | Windows | Sep 12, 2003 | Valve | 1 |
| JP | カウンターストライクRated CERO 18+. | Xbox | 2004 | — | 2 |
| WW | Counter-StrikeOS X and Linux versions self-published by Valve. | Mac | Feb 14, 2013 | Valve | 1 |
Also known as: Half-Life: Counter-Strike WW1Counter-Strike 1.6 WW1CS WW2
Box art by region
NA Counter-Strike
Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.
Version differences
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TextRetail (2000)
For the retail release, real weapon names were replaced with fictional ones for legal reasons.1
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GameplayLater versions
The escape objective from the mod days was removed in later versions.1
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ContentXbox
The Xbox version supported 10 players per online match on Xbox Live; critics disliked its graphics but praised the bot AI.1
Translations
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Spanish Official
ValveWindows · Steam versionReleased · complete
The Steam version lists Spanish (Spain) with full audio support.3
Where to play legally today
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Steam Purchase
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike 1.6 for Windows, macOS and Linux
Checked: 2026-10-133store.steampowered.com
How to run it today
Play the Steam version. If it starts with a black screen, add -nofbo to the launch options; the old retail version needs Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode to avoid menu crashes. The macOS build is 32-bit and does not run on macOS 10.15 or later.
- Counter-Strike on PCGamingWiki pcgamingwiki.com
Best version
The Steam version (Counter-Strike 1.6) runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and PCGamingWiki notes that all non-Steam releases can be redeemed on Steam.4
Reception
Metacritic scores are 88/100 for PC and 74/100 for Xbox. The PC game sold about 4.2 million copies by December 2008, and the Xbox version sold 1.5 million.1
Sources
Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13
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